Judge Orders Release Of EPA Nominee Scott Pruitt's Fossil Fuel Emails

A state judge has ordered Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s office to release thousands of documents related to Pruitt’s communications with the energy industry. The Thursday ruling comes the day before a scheduled Senate vote on Pruitt’s nomination to run the Environmental Protection Agency.

Judge Aletia Haynes Timmons of the District Court of Oklahoma County ruled that the attorney general’s office will have until Tuesday to turn over more than 2,500 emails and other documents. The watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy, with legal representation from the American Civil Liberties Union, had filed a lawsuit against Pruitt earlier this month, alleging that his office had violated Oklahoma’s open records law.

The lawsuit claimed that Pruitt, who has served as Oklahoma’s attorney general since 2011, had failed to respond to nine open-records requests seeking communications between his office and members of the fossil fuel industry, including Koch Industries, Peabody Energy and the National Coal Council. The requests had been filed as far back as January 2015.

“We are doing this because these emails should be released so that people can properly vet his record before the Senate votes to confirm him,” Nick Surgey, director of research for the Center for Media and Democracy, told Reuters earlier this month.

On Thursday, Judge Timmons criticized the attorney general’s office for its “abject failure” to abide by the open-records act, according to the watchdog group.

Pruitt, whose nomination as EPA administrator was approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Feb. 2, is scheduled to face a full Senate confirmation vote on Friday.

Environmentalists and public policy groups are calling for the vote to be postponed until all his Big Oil documents have been released and can be examined.

“Senate Republicans are attempting to jam through a nominee who fails any basic test of transparency and honesty required from a public official. Has Scott Pruitt lied to the American people? What favors did he give the oil and gas industry in exchange for their support? Until we have the answers, this nomination can go no further,” said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, in a statement Thursday.

Senate Democrats have also pushed for the vote to be delayed until they can review the communications demanded in the lawsuit. “These records are needed for the Senate to evaluate Mr. Pruitt’s suitability to serve in the position for which he has been nominated,” Democratic members of the Committee on Environment and Public Works Committee wrote earlier this week.

Republicans are forcing through Scott Pruitt’s nomination while he refuses to answer @EPWDems' questions. We object! Americans object!

In 2014, The New York Times reported that Pruitt and other Republican attorneys general had formed an “unprecedented, secretive alliance” with major oil and gas companies to undermine environmental regulations. Pruitt also joined industry players ― including Oklahoma Gas and Electric and the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance, an industry-backed nonprofit ― in filing lawsuits to stop regulations.

“It is rare,” James A. Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, told the Times about the wave of activism from EPA employees. “I can’t think of any other time when people in the bureaucracy have done this.”

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Dominique Mosbergen is a reporter at The Huffington Post covering climate change, extreme weather and extinction. Send tips or feedback to dominique.mosbergen@huffingtonpost.com or follow her on Twitter.

President Donald Trump is <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-climate-change-action_us_5847dd05e4b08c82e888db36?kqqhr4fjbss9py14i">no environmental champion</a>, but even he has said it's &ldquo;vitally important" to have&nbsp;&ldquo;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/us/politics/trump-new-york-times-interview-transcript.html" target="_blank">crystal clean</a>&rdquo; air and water.<strong>&nbsp;</strong>Pruitt, however, has proven himself to be antagonistic to even this idea. <br><br>Since taking office as Oklahoma&rsquo;s attorney general in 2011, Pruitt has sued the Environmental Protection Agency&nbsp;on multiple occasions in an effort to overturn rules limiting air pollution from power plants -- including the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/csapr">Cross-State Air Pollution Rule</a>, which curbs power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, and the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/mats/epa-announces-mercury-and-air-toxics-standards-mats-power-plants-rules-and-fact-sheets">Mercury and Air Toxics Standards</a>, which place limits on the amount of mercury, arsenic and other toxic pollution.<br><br>As Elliott Negin, a senior writer at<strong>&nbsp;</strong>the Union of Concerned Scientists,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/trump-epa-nominee-scott-p_b_13932232.html" target="_blank">explained in January</a>, those are both life-saving regulations: &ldquo;Taken together, they are <a href="https://www3.epa.gov/ttn/ecas/regdata/Benefits/casprmats.pdf">projected</a> to prevent 18,000 to 46,000 premature deaths across the country and save $150 billion to $380 billion in health care costs annually. In Pruitt&rsquo;s home state, the two regulations would avert as many as 720 premature deaths and save as much as $5.9 billion per year.&rdquo;<br><br>Pruitt <a href="http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/courts/oklahoma-attorney-general-scott-pruitt-sues-epa-again/article_c603ba08-dd62-5b0a-ad3e-e4b8d0e2d977.html">sued</a> the EPA in 2015 over the&nbsp;<a href="http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-05/documents/rule_preamble_web_version.pdf" target="_blank">Waters of the United States rule</a>&nbsp;-- which, in a piece co-written with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), he&nbsp;<a href="http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/234685-epa-water-rule-is-blow-to-americans-private-property-rights">called</a>&nbsp;the &ldquo;greatest blow to private property rights the modern era has seen.&rdquo; The <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/11/trump-public-lands-waters-united-states-environment/" target="_blank">rule</a>, which is currently tied up in the courts, extends EPA protection to tens of millions of acres of wetlands and millions of miles of streams,&nbsp;including those that <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/issues/enforce-clean-water-act" target="_blank">1 in 3&nbsp;Americans rely on for drinking water</a>.<br><br>Pruitt also sued the EPA over its <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ozone-pollution/2015-revision-2008-ozone-national-ambient-air-quality-standards-naaqs-supporting" target="_blank">2015 regulation</a>&nbsp;strengthening the national health standards <a href="http://newsok.com/oklahoma-joins-five-states-in-suit-against-new-epa-ozone-limits/article/5456440?custom_click=rss" target="_blank">for ground-level ozone</a> or smog pollution.<br><br>Several of these lawsuits are still ongoing, and environmental advocates have called on Pruitt to recuse himself from decisions related to the regulations he&rsquo;s challenged in court. Legal experts told Bloomberg, however, that they knew of <a href="https://www.bna.com/epa-foe-pruitt-n73014448247/" target="_blank">no rules in place</a> that would compel such an action on Pruitt&rsquo;s part.<br><br>&ldquo;Every American should be appalled that President-elect Trump just picked someone who has made a career of being a vocal defender for polluters to head our Environmental Protection Agency,&rdquo; Trip Van Noppen, president of Earthjustice, <a href="http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2016/earthjustice-responds-to-president-elect-trump-s-pick-to-head-the-environmental-protection-agency" target="_blank">said</a> in a December 2016 statement. &ldquo;He has fought Environmental Protection Agency pollution limits on toxic substances like soot and mercury that put us all at risk for increased cancer, childhood asthma and other health problems. He falsely claims that fracking doesn&rsquo;t contaminate drinking water supplies.&rdquo;